Love, Amanda

I have a small poem I’d like to quickly read that helps describe what my family and I have felt these few short months.

"When I was a little boy, my mother used to embroider a great deal. I would sit at her knee and look up from the floor and ask what she was doing. She informed me that she was embroidering. I told her that it looked like a mess from where I was, the underside. I watched her work within the boundaries of the little round hoop that she held in her hand.

She would smile at me, look down and gently say, "My son, you go about your playing for a while, and when I am finished with my embroidering, I will put you on my knee and let you see it from my side."

I would wonder why she was using some dark threads along with the bright ones and why they seemed so jumbled from my view.

A few minutes would pass and then I would hear Mother's voice say, "Son, come and sit on my knee."

This I did, only to be surprised and thrilled to see a beautiful flower or a sunset.  I could not believe it, because from underneath it looked so messy.

Then Mother would say to me, "My son, from underneath it did look messy and jumbled, but you did not realize that there was a pre-drawn plan on the top.  It was a design. I was only following it. Now look at it from my side and you will see what I was doing."

Many times through the years I have looked up to my Heavenly Father and wondered, "Father, what art Thou doing? My life looks like a mess to me. It seems so jumbled. The threads seem so dark. Why can't they all be bright?"

He knows perfectly what is needed in our lives to make us obedient to Him and to trust Him with our lives and one day it will all be perfect and we will see the “why’s”."

 

I have had a really hard time preparing for this talk. I just didn’t know how to take all that this amazing woman means in me and condense it in a five minute talk. I pray and hope that as I share this with you, you may have a glimpse of all that my mom meant to me. My mom was my greatest cheerleader. She was my advocate and my confidant. My battles were her battles and my greatest joys were her joys. My mom was my best friend. There was not a day that went by where we didn’t talk. As a young mother with three small children life can become pretty secluded to home, laundry, and cartoons.  My mom was my “out” so to speak. We had a daily morning phone call where I could tell her and she would patiently and enthusiastically listen to the little day to day dealings with my children. Thinking back on it I think how kind she was to make me feel that all those little things about my life were important and exciting to her. She gave me confidence as a mother. Our conversations were filled with the every day to day basics, a little gossip, and maybe some talk about what some movie stars were up to. I loved being with her. My mom had the amazing quality of making me feel safe. I am a very anxious person and my mom understood that about me. She was always there gently urging me, and calming me down when life would get really overwhelming.

Anyone who knows my mom knows she loves to run errands and she loves to shop. Walmart was her favorite. If it was the middle of the day and my mom was not home my dad’s usual answer was always “I don’t know where she is, probably at Walmart!” I would often get a call telling me to meet her for lunch and a quick run to Walmart. Her purchases always included some new household gadget and a toy or a treat for the grandkids.

My mom taught me how to be a true friend. I would always say to her “mom you must be pretty cool if your daughter and son-in-law would rather hang out with you and dad on a Friday night then go out with friends!” She was fun to be around. She had lust for life and was passionate about almost every subject. She loved her ladies groups. Her weekly lunch dates with her girlfriends were a major priority in her life.  And she was friends with so many different groups too. She truly enjoyed her friendships.

My mom adored my children. She would tell me to bring my babies up to see her so she could squeeze them. Funny enough I always thought that my mom loved my kids the most. But after listening to my sibling’s throughout this process my mom was amazing at making all the kids feel like her favorite. It was like wait a minute, I’m her favorite! My mom’s greatest joy was her family. She loved all of the family dinners, swimming at Willowcreek, Ute games, sport and dance recitals, and weekends in Midway just to name a few. I hope each and every grandkid will remember how special they were to their grandma, and I hope they will all teach Henry, Annabelle, Charlotte, and Jonathan what an incredible grandma she was.

When my mom was first diagnosed with leukemia I remember going to see her in the hospital and begging her not to leave me. I made her promise to do whatever it took for her to beat this. I could not imagine my life without her. She promised she would fight, but told me she was not afraid to die. Those four weeks in the hospital were horrible and traumatic on so many levels. I remember my family members and I thinking it couldn’t possibly get worse, and it did. It was like walking through hell, slowly, for lack of a better term. The sleepless nights, the side effects to the chemo, the helplessness as we watched on. And as awful as it was she was amazingly strong, she never complained, she was so BRAVE. At the end when we heard that her bone marrow was not clean I was consumed with anger. I was frustrated as to why we had to watch her endure those horrific treatments if the Lord knew it wouldn’t work. I was angry that we wasted those weeks watching her suffer in vain. The depth of my sorrow was indescribable, but as was promised to me by my mom’s bishop, I had a very strong answer. I was told that we had to watch her go through that so that we would be strong enough to let her go.

Now at the end of all of this it still doesn’t seem real. I feel like my mom’s on a vacation, and when she comes home I can’t wait to tell her what we all have gone though and how hard it was and how I’m so happy to have her home.

 Thank you mom. For loving me, for adoring my children, for supporting my husband, and for being my best friend.